Today Blair published a new project he's developing called “We're Live” which involves using real-time face replacement algorithms available in OpenFrameworks to insert his (or any other face) into a live television feed that he's watching at home. It's a crazy amount of fun.

Along with photos of himself “guest staring” on a variety of popular shows, the blog post includes the technical details and his open sourced, Syphon-enabled face replacing app for download should you want to try this at home with your VJ software of choice.

His blog post also goes into the inspiration and background of the project:

We’re Live allows a user to composite their face (or any face they choose) onto a live television stream. Essentially, anyone you watch on TV can finally look like you….or anyone you want. You could make everyone on TV look like Bill Murray if you really wanted to.

One of television’s greatest powers is in its ability to display very structured and edited views of reality. By watching the fabricated streams of the shows, viewers begin to wish for the interesting, exciting and impossible lives of the characters. They can subconsciously desire the smiles and trouble free lives enabled by buying the products in the advertisements. With this software, viewers can come one step closer to truly seeing themselves on screen.

We’re Live is a project involving live HD cable TV and face substitution software. It is a hardware and software method for doing a real time facial composite/replacement on live television. The original face substitution implementation and cloning shader was created by Kyle McDonald and Arturo Castro in 2012. The face tracking algorithm that enables this kind of high quality facial substitution was developed by Jason Saragih.